Tag Archives: Drawball

Now you see her… now you don’t

Artemisia (above left), my drawing for Drawball, the online collaborative art space, which I drew on 23 Dec 2006, earned me the honour of infinite ink, but didn’t get into the Hall of Fame. No reason why it should, but that meant there would be no automatic protection by site admin. So I knew if I wanted Artemisia to stay, I would have to look after her myself.

If you want to draw in Drawball you’ve got to be prepared to defend your artwork – people don’t call it web graffiti for nothing. How much work that entails depends on where you choose to do your drawing. If you draw in a contentious area (e.g. the central plot), it can mean daily checks and repairs. If you choose a quieter spot, like I did for Artemisia, you usually don’t need to keep such a keen watch on it.

Well, Artemisia lasted for about one month, largely unmolested, which is not bad going. Then towards the end of Jan 2007 she disappeared. She was completely obliterated (see above right). I knew she wouldn’t last forever, but I didn’t expect her to be wiped out in one fell swoop.

But really, what did I expect?

The truth is, things were a little too peaceful and quiet around Artemisia – i.e. dull. So I decided to let some minor scribbles remain, to see what would happen. I knew if I stopped tending her she’d be drawn over eventually – and rightly so, this is a dynamic community, it’s all about keeping drawings alive. But to be killed outright… and not replaced by another drawing! That was a bit of a blow. Well, I was stunned for about a millisecond, then I realised, I only had myself to blame. In my earlier post I’d added a link from my screenshot of Artemisia directly to her location in Drawball. That’s like leaving your door wide open in a high crime area – Come right in, deface my drawing. What’s stopping you?

Drawball, collaborative web graffiti – this post in Smart Mobs (7 Dec 2006) first drew my attention to Drawball. Yes, at first glance it may look like graffiti, but if that’s all you see, you’re missing the art in it. Certainly there’s plenty of aimless doodling, but there are also artistic gems hidden in there – although finding them can be like finding needles in a haystack of scribble. It’s too easy to dismiss it as mere web graffiti, I define Drawball as collaborative web community art.

Show off your skills on the enormous circle of potential art known as drawball.

That’s what the site says and, amazingly, that’s what a number of artists have done, despite the transitory nature of this communal drawing-cum-gallery space.

If you draw something of premium quality and we find it, we will protect it and maybe even add it to the hall of fame with your contact information, URL, etc.

You can be banned; it is wise to play nice.

Apart from this carrot and stick, and a finite quantity of drawing ink per session, limiting the amount of damage an individual can do, there are no rules in Drawball. If you make a sustained positive contribution, you’ll be rewarded.

I was delighted to earn infinite ink after my first intensive drawing session, during which I produced Artemsia, my artist in residence.

Click image, right, to see it in Drawball (you may need to click on ‘disagree’ to gain access)

The pen is mightier than the sword

Stake a claim in Drawball by drawing something. Co-ordinates map the entire area so you can revisit your precise drawing location. But you can never be sure what you’ll find on your return – anyone can draw anywhere, anytime (unless your drawing has been protected by site admin, which seems to be rare).

Some, unrealistically, try to reserve their plot (click image, left, to see if the Mine strategy worked).

Others draw and keep on drawing. If you stake a claim you’ve got to be prepared to defend it. In this environment the digital pen is certainly mightier than the sword. Territorial battles are rife. Group logos and national flags are recurring motifs, and expressions of Korean nationalism are sometimes notoriously invasive.

Who and how many will co-operate to protect a good drawing? What’s worth protecting? How long does a good drawing last? Protecting drawings, whether your own, your group’s or whatever you consider to be good, could prove to be subject to the wisdom of crowds, given time. A longer term study is needed, and Drawball’s browse history feature, which archives the changing state of the entire space twice a day, could be helpful.

Evolving community art

A characteristic of web 2.0 software is that it’s perpetually in beta. Likewise with Drawball, it’s forever evolving, there will never be a finished product. The process of change, how the community negotiates the shared space, how it collaborates and handles conflicts, is fascinating – and to find art here too… In such a volatile environment it’s remarkable how artists will devote considerable time, effort and skill on artworks which may only have a temporary existence. What makes them do it?

Most Drawball contributors are anonymous. Although some sign their work and plug their websites, it’s too easily erased or defaced to be a reliable form of self-promotion, and very little gets into the Hall of Fame. So it must be the social aspect that keeps artists coming back to draw.

Evolving communities

A more detailed look at two different communities within Drawball may elucidate. See my Flash guided tours of the self-styled Drawball Fans and a group I’ve dubbed the ‘Peace & Love Community‘.

Is Drawball a worthy subject? Wikipedia thinks not

The read/write web, it may be, but Drawball shows it’s the view/draw web too. Ironically, since my interest in it has grown, Wikipedia’s has diminished to the point where on 19 December 2006 it deleted its article on Drawball (quoted in Smart Mobs, see above ). This says a lot about the differences between a text-based community and a visual arts-based community.

Arguably, the majority of active Wikipedians are biased towards the written word and perhaps don’t fully appreciate the significance of a primarily visual phemonenon. A big deciding factor in the decision to delete the article was that hardly anyone was writing about it. To appreciate what’s happening in Drawball, you have to spend time looking and/or drawing in it – activities which most bloggers and wikipedians, prefering to read and write, are unlikely to do. Whereas Drawball enthusiasts themselves are more into drawing than writing, judging by the almost exclusively terse but ardent blog mentions I’ve come across.

Unsurprisingly the wider art community hasn’t taken much notice either, which is the usual fate of community art in the real world too. Drawball obviously hasn’t (yet) achieved the respectable status of a collaborative art project, probably because the collaborative experience is not being orchestrated by a bona fide artist or other respected creative group.

All in all, I think Drawball is being overlooked.

Hall of Fame – the future?

What Drawball lacks is a facility for the community to influence what goes into the Hall of Fame. It’s currently up to the site administrators, who aren’t always on the ball, in more ways than one. There’s a lot missing from the Hall of Fame (see below). I’m looking forward to the next stage when drawings can be tagged, annotated, recommended and, as with Digg, promoted by the community. A Hall of Defame might be useful too to keep the vandals at bay. But like a wiki, it’s the constant maintenance and restoration work that keeps the community thriving – and doubtless the battles are part of the fun for some.

An interesting phenomenon, but is it art?

Drawball is archetypal web 2.0, it’s collective, collaborative, social – but is it art? Who is the artist? Is it the programmer/site designer? The person who came up with the idea? Or is there a collective artist? Is it anyone who contributes, or just those who do ‘good’ drawings? Or is it not art at all – even notart (like the notbooks idea in the Penguin blog)?

Granted, the Hall of Fame doesn’t do much to support my claim that there’s art in Drawball, the site admin’s choices are pretty kitsch on the whole. But there’s some interesting artwork in the ball, if you’re prepared to look for it – and if you’re not, I’ve picked out some of my favourites below.

The Wilx Hall of Fame Refused

Maybe the Wilx Collection by reframing these drawings can re-present them as art. Judge for yourselves…

Click a thumbnail to see larger image

See how drawings emerge in these interesting examples from the Drawball Hall of Fame (animations generated by the Drawball site):

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve become fascinated by Drawball, an ever changing online community art space. The image above shows how it looked on 23 Dec 2006 when I first started exploring it. Since then I’ve become so preoccupied collecting interesting drawings from the world of Drawball (and adding one of my own) that unpacking my main art collection is on hold for the moment.

It may look chaotic from this distance, but Drawball is full of hidden wonders and intriguing phenomena. It’s teeming with all kinds of creative life and destructive forces too. The remarkable thing is how masses of people can, and will, draw together despite the conflicts.

Over the coming days I’ll be sharing my findings with you – and be warned, some of it I’m going to call art.